Idle Conversation
by Storymaster Caith
Summary: The student sees what the master will not. A talk between Kankuro and Chiyo on the eve of Gaara's coronation. oneshot.


** Idle Conversation**

He sensed the chakra of the approaching woman before he heard the footsteps on the playhouse's battlement wall. He leaned back, long fingers trailing through the sand grains left on the broad red painted stucco. She paused a few feet from him; put her withered hands into her sleeves and narrowed her gaze to the size of pinpricks. A long purple banner flapped in the night breeze.

"So you did it."

Kankuro didn't bother turning around. "Hello, Chiyo-baasama. I see you missed the coronation." He said.

They were a stunning contrast to one another; an old woman and a young man, one dressed in everyday desert garb, the other in a black silk hakama, bound with a red and yellow obi. Where one face was wrinkled, lined with age and weariness, the other was smooth and without emotion, a white background onto which dripping lines of purple formed a fierce complexion.

"You made a monster Kazekage." The woman spat.

"Gaara helped." He had. He'd done so much in so little time. It was amazing, what a fight for existence could do for a person.

"But it was you who pulled the strings, child of Yondaime."

She was right. It had taken six months- six months of sorting, plotting, and the most intricate puppetry he had ever performed. A poisoned drink here, a whisper in an ear there; scenes played out in his own little kabuki play. It was easy, pulling strings. He probably shouldn't have been so surprised that he was a natural at politics.

"I couldn't have done it if they didn't want it," he said, waving his hand in a sweeping motion; all of the winking lights of the houses below seemed encompassed in his arms.

"He will be the end of us all."

"Or our salvation."

"I taught you better than this."

"You taught your grandson's ghost." Kankuro replied, turning around to look at her. He had gained height, always the tallest of the three; his dark green eyes glittered harshly behind the sweeping lines of purple paint. "I'm not a child anymore, Chiyo. You can't chase me into my room with ghouls or with threats. Gaara is your leader now and whether you like it or not you will obey him."

"Kazekage he might be, but I am still Troupe Master of the Red Sands," the woman responded, her black eyes cracking. "And you would do well to remember that, Journeyman Crow!"

The boy's eyes narrowed; warmth coiled at his fingertips. Below them, many, many levels below, a set of glass eyes opened in a wooden face, and ivory teeth chattered in a clicking jaw.

"Troupe Master or not," he informed the woman, "No Kazekage gains favor without the touch of the Puppeteers. The Troupe has accepted the change even if you have not."

"Then why not you?!" the woman demanded. "You are Arashi's eldest son! The firstborn heir to his blood and his fortune!"

The boy tightened his jaw. "You would have me break Chikamatsu's law?! Is THAT how far you are willing to go in order to avoid change, Chiyo? Uprooting the foundations of the First and his brother?"

The woman laughed harshly. "You or that brainless slut you call a sister, it doesn't matter to me." She replied. "Anyone would do."

She was the greatest of the puppeteers; Chiyo of the Ten. But even the greatest are forced to blink when poisoned senbon are buried in the wall behind them.

"Say such things of my siblings again, old woman," Kankuro purred, "and I will be sure you don't live to regret them."

She opened her mouth, to laugh, to scoff; what threat was he to her? To she who had taught him everything he knew? But she looked into his eyes and saw the truth there. The most powerful he was not, and still had much to learn; but cunning was something THAT family had in spades. He would wait. As long as it took, he would wait. It was what made him an excellent puppeteer.

It had been a long time since Chiyo Akasuna had backed down from a fight.

"I will not bow before that creature." She hissed. Kankuro smiled sweetly. "Well, that's too bad." He said. "Last time I checked, you had to."

"How long before he loses control?!" Chiyo snapped. "How long before the beast destroys us all? You've doomed your entire village!"

"No." Kankuro replied. "I've helped save it. And if you weren't a bitter old shrew with sand in your eyes you would understand that as well."

"Then you feel no remorse."

"None whatsoever." Kankuro responded sweetly. "It was your best lesson, after all. Regret nothing. And I never will."

Chiyo stared at him. She'd heard the whispers, of course- rumors on the dry desert wind.

_Fight. Defeated, the Ichibi DEFEATED. A failed mission, a peace treaty, the Kazekage's..children... _

She never was one for gossip.

He could see the dawning realization in her eyes. It made his small smirk all the wider, twisting his face from kabuki to oni.

"What happened?" she whispered, words snatched away by the breeze. "What happened in Konoha?"

"More than someone like you could ever understand." Kankuro responded.

Chiyo looked at him, then out at the houses of the hidden village. She coughed, scoffed, then made a seal, disappearing into a cloud of smoke. Kankuro remained, leaning against the battlement for a little longer, before heading for the darkened stairs, to the celebration still clamoring below. If he noticed the flash of crimson red at the corner of his eye, he never said a word.

**oOo**

"_**It's a ninjutsu that allows you to bring back the dead- in exchange for your own life." **_

It was just getting dark in the desert; the last smears of pink were disappearing from the sky. A young man walked the barest edge of the great outcropping which hid the ninja village of Sunakagure. He wore black mourning clothes, his dark brown hair tousled. His face was painted white, eyes surrounded by purple, which dripped in two tear-like marks down his cheeks, swirling to a spiral at his jawbone.

He knew where he was going; a single gravestone, removed from the others that lined the thick sandstone base of the great wall. Other tombs were marked in the rock; catacombs that curled around the entire village, climbing like ant tunnels. Even in death, Shinobi guarded the hidden sand.

**Akasuna Chiyo**

He knelt down before the stone, ran long, elegant fingers across it; her older brother had arrived at the Kazekage's compound that morning, with carts.

"_Nii-chan wanted you to have them." _

They were badly damaged; but he would repair them. All ten.

"Hey, old lady." He said. "you missed the party."

She had been honored; their Troupe Master, their leader. Only puppeteers had seen the show put on; it wasn't something other Sand shinobi would understand.

"_It's your job now, you know." _Frog had said to him. _"You were always her choice." _

Death. Rebirth. Who but a performer could so easily walk the line?

The gauntlet on his left arm was heavy, all golden and red enamel. He hadn't had time to check all the traps yet; he'd been too busy avoiding Gaara.

"You never told me this thing was such a bitch." He informed the gravestone, waving the arm with the gauntlet. "Or I would have practiced wearing it earlier." He leaned back. "I should be at the playhouse. They're giving me a promotion tonight."

He smiled slightly, the movement stretched by the purple paint on his lips.

"Do you understand now, Chiyo-sensei?"

_**A/N: No, Akasuna isn't Chiyo's name, but I figured she needed a last one and Akasuna was as close as I was going to get. I think Kankuro had a HUGE part in getting Gaara that Kazekage hat- it's referenced within the series, too. 'I researched this thoroughly'...yeah, Kuro, I bet you did. As always, comments and constructive crit welcome, flamers please exit stage right. All refrences to various puppeteers, the Red Sands Playhouse and the way it is run belong only in my lonely little brain. Further note: the refrence to Chikamatsu's law, in case we need explaination, is a little stipultation in caithworld where Chikamatsu Monzeimon (the father of the puppet jutsu) and the first Kazekage were brothers. Chikamatsu's law states that no Puppeteer can become Kazekage, no matter their level of skill. I tried to find a place to shove it into the story but it just wouldn't fit.  
**_


End file.
